Say the word birch and most people think of the trees with white trunks so often used to add interest to winter gardens. But there’s much more to birch than white bark, and one person who understood this better than anyone was Kenneth Ashburner. For Kenneth, birch were a lifelong passion and he travelled the world seeking out and studying different species, collecting seed and becoming acquainted with birch in all their variety.
Kenneth’s long-anticipated monograph,, was written with Hugh McAllister and published in 2013. It was just one welcome result of his years spent studying birch in the wild. Another was his arboretum at Stone Lane Gardens in, offering a unique chance to see their natural variation.
